Wedding Day Self-Care

 

A Photographer’s Guide to Feeling Your Best on Your Wedding Day

So much planning goes into your wedding day.  Even the smallest, most intimate of weddings take a lot of work. 

It’s so easy, as your wedding day comes closer, to be so focused on the minute details of the wedding that you forget to take care of yourself. 

Feeling your best on your wedding day is paramount to having an enjoyable time. You should feel confident and glowing and there are things you can do to help facilitate these feelings.  

And more than that, when the chaos of last-minute planning is underway, there are ways to make sure you don’t neglect to follow through with even your best intentions.

 

A Photographer’s Guide to Wedding Day Self-Care

Decide What You Need

Ask yourself what you need to feel and look your best on your wedding day. Make a list of everything you do that impacts the way you feel—that makes you feel like your “best self.” 

Although things like beauty, grooming, massages and therapy can do wonders for how we feel temporarily, dig a little deeper and into what actually influences how you feel on a deep level. Maybe it’s spending intentional time to connect with your partner, or a friend or family member. Maybe it’s a long, solo hike to re-energize and ground yourself. Or perhaps you need to hand off all wedding responsibilities one week prior to the wedding.

Whatever you need for your wedding day self-care, write it down. 

 

Plan Ahead

Once you have your ideas of what you need to feel your best, take an active role in scheduling them into your wedding plans. 

Book any appointments you might need in advance, but not too close to your wedding day. It’s best to book in advance so you can make sure you can get your first choice and have one less thing to worry about. 

For other types of scheduled activities like a pre-wedding yoga or meditation session, intentionally add it to your wedding day schedule and commit to it. The pursuit of self-care on your wedding day requires you to make the space and time to engage in activities that will center and ground you before you start your wedding day.

Wardrobe Planning

In order to feel and look your best, make sure you plan your clothing out well in advance. Any finalized decisions made early will be one less thing you need to do last minute and will give you more time and peace of mind.

Try on all of your outfits for any wedding-related events, including engagement sessions, welcome dinners, and brunches. Move, walk, and sit, all to make sure you will be the most comfortable in your attire. This is important because you will not feel like you look the best if you aren’t comfortable.

Health Approach

Health-related goals are different for everyone, and instead of creating your own methods to look and feel your best, consult with an actual professional before starting anything new. You will get a safe, healthy approach with customized support with enough time to work out the kinks well in advance of your wedding day.

Whatever you do, do not start a crash diet or a new exercise regime before your wedding. Doing so can result in an injury or adverse effects that will give you more stress in the end. By consulting with a professional, not only will you have a better chance at reaching your goals, but you will also avoid de-railing yourself with approaches that aren’t right for you.

And while we are on health, make sure you get in the habit of drinking lots of water leading up to your wedding. It will help your skin and will make it less likely for you to get dehydrated on your wedding day. It’s also one of the easiest forms of wedding day self-care.

Trends

If you aren’t someone who considers yourself a trendy person, your wedding isn’t the time to become one.  

Not to say there is anything wrong with being trendy, but there is something wrong with not feeling intuitively at peace with the decisions you’ve made for your wedding. Therefore, avoid pursuing trends, whether it be clothing, design, ambiance, or anything that doesn’t truly align with who you are and how you want to feel on your wedding day. 

Take Time for Your Relationship

The whole reason for your wedding, your relationship, is often the very thing that takes the back seat during the months leading up to your wedding.  

Neglecting your relationship can lead to misunderstandings and a general feeling of misalignment. So take care of your relationship and schedule time together regardless of what is going on around you two. Stay focused on the whole reason for your wedding—because happiness and contentedness are paramount to looking and feeling your best.

 

Manage Your Stress

Wedding planning can be stressful but managing your stress is imperative to looking and feeling your best. After all, no one looks their best and certainly doesn’t feel their best, if they are stressed. 

The easiest way to combat wedding-related stress is to hire a planner. And not just any planner — you need to hire the right planner for you and your wedding. It needs to be someone you can trust and rely on; someone who is in sync with the vision you have for your day. This also means pushing back on ideas or approaches that might not lead you to feel aligned on your wedding day.

Find a planner that understands your vision. Having a hands-off approach is the best way to lose that wedding day stress you are always hearing about. 

And if you can’t hire a planner, find people you can delegate to in order to take some of the stress off of your shoulders. 

Manage Your Sleep

Last, but definitely one of the most important, is to manage your sleep. 

Sleep is usually one of the first aspects of wedding day self-care to be neglected but it is one of the most important. You’ll never look or feel your best if you don’t get enough sleep. If that means you need to delegate some of the planning or even forgo something in order to get enough sleep, then that is what needs to happen. 

I recommend setting a strict bedtime and working on committing to it as you approach your wedding. Create an easily replicable night-time routine, whether that is cutting back on screen time before bed or committing to not checking your phone in the middle of the night. 

 

Don’t Wait to Start Your Wedding Day Self-Care

Even if your wedding day is months, or even years away, it isn’t too early to start developing the routines and habits needed to look and feel your best, today. In many cases, an early start is absolutely necessary to reap the benefits of your actions.  

Want to read more?  Check out my blog on showing up fully for your portrait session.